Power cut in Timaru

IN THE DARK: Vicky Millar, left, pays in cash to Groundfloor shopkeeper Kerri Shaw during a power outage in Timaru.

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A digger hitting cabling is believed to have knocked out the power to parts of Timaru this afternoon.

The Alpine Energy faults register indicated power was out in Parkside, Seaview and Timaru Central areas since 12pm. Power has since been restored to all customers except Timaru Girls' High School, which is expected to come online by 6.30pm.

Alpine Energy chief executive Andrew Tombs said the outage occurred after the lines were tripped at its Hunt St substation.

"We think a digger might have hit some cabling. It wasn't one of our diggers," he said.

Mr Tombs said there were effectively two simultaneous outages at midday, which affected about 750 customers, including Timaru Girls High School.

It had restored power to about 170 customers by 1pm.

"We isolated the first fault pretty quickly," Mr Tombs said. "We're working on restoring everything as quickly as possible. That includes the outage at Timaru Girls High School."